Son of late Pistons owner Bill Davidson ready to fulfill giving legacy

The foundation started by the late Pistons owner Bill Davidson became flush with $1 billion last December as pieces of the estate were settled.AP File Photo

DETROIT — Ethan Daniel Davidson, the free-spirited beatnik son of a billionaire, never planned to settle back in metro Detroit.

Now, he's poised to become one of its most important benefactors.

As the son of late Detroit Pistons owner and industrial magnate Bill Davidson, the Birmingham resident is helping shape and steer the fledgling William Davidson Foundation, founded by his famously philanthropic father shortly before his 2009 death.

Along with several other Davidson heirs, including widow Karen Davidson, the 42-year-old son holds the reins of an outfit with $1 billion at its command — and Detroit's cultural and education institutions in its sights.

The foundation, which listed $191 million in assets on its 2010 tax return, became flush with $1 billion last December as pieces of the estate were settled, said Davidson, who serves as the group's treasurer. Bill Davidson's son-in-law, Jonathan Aaron, is foundation president, and several other family members are directors.

"It's really about trying to preserve my father's final wishes," said Davidson, speaking in the cozy rustic cabin at the back of his plush Birmingham property, where he moved last year with his wife and their two young sons. Nearby is an indoor basketball court, its walls covered in vintage Pistons memorabilia.

For Davidson, best known around these parts as a musician of some note, it's a striking life transition: After years as a nomadic bohemian — living in the Alaskan wilderness, trading firewood for moose meat, hopping cargo ships to Europe -- he's finding himself at ritzy private dinners with Warren Buffett.

"I never thought I'd be doing this," he said with a soft chuckle. "These sorts of things are like, 'Wait, what am I doing here? I'm just some schmuck who lived under a bridge.' "

So the restless son has a new adventure: managing the legacy of a father whose shadow he spent most of his life trying to escape.

For the first time, he's opening up publicly about his father, the family fortune and his new direction.

Davidson had spent so long fretting about being that guy, he says — the don't-you-know-who-I-am son of wealth. He was uneasy with materialism, conscious of the "dumb luck that hit me" by being adopted into the Davidson family as a child.

In his 40s, he said, he has at last made peace, realizing that you "don't have to be owned by the things you're supposed to own."

For years, asserting his own identity meant living as a self-described hobo and stoking his musical talent. During the 2000s, Davidson built a reputable name in indie music circles with seven albums of smart, edgy folk-rock. With home base at an isolated Alaska cabin — 270 miles from electricity -- he crisscrossed the country for six years in a van, playing more than 900 shows and giving away 50,000 albums.

"It's not that it was a total failure," he said. "But by the end, the greatest success was being able to say I was never more than three hours away from a couch I'd slept on before. Not many people can say that."

Saturday night he was scheduled to make his musical comeback, celebrating the release of his first album in seven years, "Silvertooth," with a performance at Detroit's Max M. Fisher Music Center. The record, already piling up strong reviews, includes two tambourine cameos by new friend and Pistons owner Tom Gores, who bought Palace Sports & Entertainment from the Davidsons in 2011.

Produced by longtime Detroit music wiz Warren Defever, the album also alludes to drama in the ongoing settlement of his father's estate. "It seems like every hand I shake is only groping in the till," he sings on "Ain't the Man I Used to Be."

"Money and power can make people do unfortunate things," Davidson said, declining to elaborate.

Former Pistons executive Dan Hauser has known Davidson for 33 years. He recalled that after Bill Davidson's death, the younger Davidson spent an emotional day touring the Palace offices to thank the staff of 230 on his dad's behalf. It was a symbolic moment, Hauser said. "It was his time to step up and carry the torch," he said. "That's pretty powerful stuff."

Bearded, gentle and perceptive, Davidson brings an introspective filter to it all. His music is sometimes whimsical, often keenly self-aware -- no surprise for a University of Michigan lit major — and his conversations seem like just another way to keep sorting out where everything fits.

"I've had a very unusual life, and I appreciate that," he said. "But I really hope if people say anything about me, it's that I haven't been obnoxious about that stuff, or flaunted it."

Davidson is a new, young breed of Detroit philanthropist. In the high-end circles where millions change hands, he stands out -- not least because he's been known to show up in a paisley tuxedo.

"It's the mantle of a generation," said DSO Executive Vice President Paul Hogle. "Detroit's future is going to be built on this kind of influence and leadership."

Taking on the foundation was his father's request, and it's what ultimately lured Davidson back to Detroit in 2006.

For decades, he had resisted his father's prodding to step into a ready-made kingdom of his choice -- Guardian Industries, the Pistons, the Palace.

A fortune lay at his fingertips. Davidson wanted to get his hands around the rest of the world first.

Born in Lansing, he grew up in Bloomfield Hills, where a teenage Isiah Thomas was his roommate for a year in the '80s.

Wanderlust took over after Davidson graduated from Lahser High School, where he'd caught the music bug in a school rock band. He was briefly a stage tech at Palace venues, working such concerts as Madonna and Lollapalooza. He eventually made his way through school, earning degrees from U-M and Harvard, then toured as a bass player with East Coast acts.

"I love my father -- he was my best friend -- but he was a powerful man," Davidson said. "I don't mean as a captain of industry. I mean he had a kind of quietly powerful personality. I wasn't going to find out who I was by staying here."

Some family members questioned his decisions through the years — the move to Alaska in his late 20s, the music career, the solo treks through South America, the return to U-M in his 30s to study Islamic law.

"Some people thought I was just being a jerk," he said.

By 2007, now back in Detroit, life was changing. Davidson wed Gretchen Gonzales, formerly of the rock band Slumber Party. His own music career had become a painful topic: Feeling like he'd failed to break through, Davidson avoided his guitar and even found himself paralyzed by talk of music.

Several years passed before he wrote another song, which eventually blossomed into the batch of material that makes up "Silvertooth." Still, he says music is just a sideline now, and with two curly headed boys — Asher, 4, and William, 2 — he doesn't plan to tour again.

Lengthy discussions with the elder Davidson helped flesh out a foundation plan. Just before he died, he signed a directive that gave the foundation its two-pronged charge: Money would be steered to Jewish education efforts worldwide, and to cultural institutions and projects in Detroit.

Davidson recalls his father citing the Ford Foundation — the New York-based outfit built on Ford family wealth — and lamenting that it had neglected its roots.

This year, the foundation has quietly directed $1 million apiece to the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Michigan Opera Theatre — "a way of getting our feet wet," as Davidson put it.

Donations also went to U-M's athletics department and a new Israeli hospital that will serve Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities.

Much, much more is on the way. By law, the foundation will be required to donate 5% of its assets annually. For the Davidson foundation and its $1-billion endowment, that means $50 million every year. Local projects will be the emphasis in 2013.

The foundation's small team is learning on the fly, and donation strategies are still being devised, he said.

"We have to look at it not as grant-making, but as philanthropic investments," Davidson said. "You want returns with meaningful results."

To institutions like the DSO and DIA, such foundations are the key to life.

Two-thirds of the DSO's annual $27-million income (forecast at $23.2 million this year) comes from contributions, said Hogle. Bill Davidson was a longtime orchestra supporter, but the magnitude of the Davidson Foundation puts it in rare company, he said.

"To see the family now not just in the parade of supporters, but up at the front of the parade — it's really refreshing," Hogle said.

For Davidson, it's a chance to reflect.

"We all have different abilities," he said. "I'm not 7 feet -- I'm never going to be a basketball star. But that doesn't mean I can't do other things.

"Everybody has the opportunity to squeeze as much out of their thing as they can. I don't want to sound naïve, but I don't think you need money to do that."